Preston North End Community and Education Trust has received a grant to support residents of the Fishwick and St Matthew’s wards of Preston with its PNECET Helping Hampers scheme.
Helping Hampers have been delivered to vulnerable members of the Preston community for the last seven weeks, and now with specialist funding from the Big Local programme, of the Local Trust, there will be an added focus on delivering additional hampers to at-need residents in the Fishwick and St Matthew’s areas of Preston.
PNECET are working with the Friends of Fishwick and St Matthew’s community group to deliver the hampers and there will also be a referral scheme for recipients to nominate fellow members of their community to receive a hamper.
The grant comes from the Big Local programme’s Covid-19 fund to support those in need during the current Coronavirus crisis.
PNECET have also received grants from the Lancashire COVID-19 Community Support Fund which was supported by the National Emergencies Trust and the Martin Lewis Community Support Fund to fund hampers throughout this time – not to mention the generous donations of the PNE squad and management to kick off the campaign back in April.
Speaking of the new grant, which will see residents of the two Preston wards receive additional resources inside their hampers, PNECET Inclusion Manager Melissa Brown said: “We were lucky enough to be recipients of the Covid-19 fund, which is allowing us to send out our hampers to some of the most in-need residents of Fishwick and St Matthew’s wards.
“Included in these hampers are the non-perishable items, the fresh food, but also some raffle tickets for a raffle we will be doing for a PNE experience.
“There are also some meal cards to show the recipients of the hamper how to cook an easy meal with the items that we’re giving. There are exercise cards to keep everyone fit during this time and then an invite to a weekly coffee morning via the Zoom app to try to bring residents together during these challenging times. “
Those receiving the hampers in the wards will be invited to a virtual coffee morning from 11am until 12 noon every Wednesday, and everyone from these areas will be welcome to join as well.
The grant will also allow PNECET to visit further members of its programmes, with the Callon and West View PL Kicks sessions among those which run within or in the vicinity of the Fishwick and St Matthew’s areas of Preston.
“We’re going to be handing out hampers to some of our PL Kicks participants who are residing in these wards, which will be good to engage them and keep them in touch with us at this time and also they will maybe they will pass it on to their friends,” Melissa added.
“When we come back to actively delivering the programmes, that touching base with them will hopefully bring them back and get them engaged once we start going again.”
If you are residing in the Fishwick or St Matthew’s areas of Preston and would like to receive or nominate a fellow member of your community for a hamper, or would like more information on the planned virtual coffee mornings, please contact mel@pne.com.
For other queries regarding the PNECET Helping Hampers, including referrals for those in other parts of Preston, please contact community@pne.com – we are still accepting nominations for vulnerable members of the community to receive our hampers.
Donations can still be made to the campaign to show your support, too – click here to visit our JustGiving page.